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ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BY 



DR. JOSHUA A.JONES 

PRESIDENT OF WILBERFORGE UNIVERSITY 
WILBERFORGE. OHIO 



ON THE OCCASION OF. THK ANNIVERSITY CELEBRATION 

OF THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT TO 

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE 

UNITED STATES 

AT METROPOLITAN A. M. E. CHURCH 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 

Tuesday Evening, March 31. 1908 



MARY B, CURTIS 
Shorthand Reporter 
609 F Street, N. W. (First Floor, Front) 
Washington, D. C. 



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The bequest of 

Daniel Murray, 

Washington, D. G, 

1925. 




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ADDRESS 



^ BY DR. JOSHUA A. JONES 



^ 



j\Ir. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

"I thank you very much for the splendid audience which you 
have furnished me to-night. I thank you for the opportunity to 
appear in the city of Washington after a sojourn from this city of 
more than twenty years. I was a student at one time in my history 
at Howard University. It was while I was at that university that 
I imbibed from great men such as Dr. Patten and others, many of 
the inspirations that went with me through the more than twenty 
years of my meanderings and hard labors, and I come back to-night 
with precious memories of those great men to greet not only this 
audience, but, on to-morrow, to go back to that sacred spot. 

"It is true that I have not visited Washington very much, not 
because Washington was a place to me of no interest, but because 
my life has been so exceedingly busy and I have been so greatly 
;taxed with the burdens that fell upon my shoulders that I could 
do nothing more than learn of you and read of you. So while I 
have not personally mingled with you in physical person, spiritually 
and intellectually, I have been with you. I have been with Howard 
University in all of her struggles, and I hope to God the time will 
never come that Howard University will change her history or 
ideals, but stand for the great things that she has always stood. 
(Great applause.) 

"I am glad to meet the boys of Howard, for I am one myself. 
I want to say also that I wish to apologize for my speech to-night 
with which I shall afflict you, and I want to say to you that my 
only reason for wandering in this great place and in this city of 
learning and culture for the purpose of making a speech is that 
I am one of the Negro race in this country who shared with you 
the benefits of this immortal amendment to the Constitution. I 
come not because of my learning and ability to make a speech ; I 
have come of a patriotic response to the call of my people. Some 
two weeks ago I received a letter from my good friend, Mr. J. W. 
Cromwell, stating that I had been selected for the purpose of speak- 
ing on this occasion and that he wanted me to speak on the subject 
of 'Higher Education for the Negro.' 

"I did not see the relationship between the anniversary of the 
fifteenth amendment to the Constitution and the subject of 'Higher 
Education,' but when I reflected upon the unity of knowledge and 
reflected also that those im.mortal amendments were intended to 
give to the Negro political and physical freedom and the freedom 
which education should bring to the intellect, I concluded to accept 
the task. 



"I want to say also that it would seem at first that the subject 
of education had been expounded by its exponents to the American 
people so many times, and especially in this great center, that by this 
time the subject has grown old and non-interesting, but that is not 
true. The last word upon the theme of education has not yet been 
spoken, nor will the theme have grown old with the progressive. 
So long as the people are interested in education, the theme 'Edu- 
cation' will be new and young and fresh in their minds, and the last 
word, I repeat, will not have been spoken, nor can this great theme 
grow old. It is so impressive and so inclusive, and so great and 
comprehensive of the affairs of the state that education must ever 
be a large subject ; hence I do not apologize for speaking to you 
to-night upon this subject on this all important occasion. I wish 
1 were able to do as becomes this great occasion. 

"Education in general, when spoken of, or in general terms, has 
such a unique idea that opinions concerning it are equally as unique ; 
there is a unanimity of belief. 

"Education for the Negro in particular is one that involves many 
opinions. I come to you to-night with some pronounced opinions. 
We speak of Negro education. Perhaps I may differ from a great 
many Negro educators and a great many white friends of the 
Negro. Nevertheless, I have reason for the faith that is in me. 
You must convince me, at least, before I change my mind. I say 
that there are a variety of opinions upon the great theme. of 'Edu- 
cation,' and these opinions are not only varied, they are fast grow- 
ing into great systems. 

"Two instances will bring to our minds forcibly what I mean. 
I was at the quarter centennial anniversary of Tuskegee Institu- 
tion. I sat in that vast audience for days and hours. At last there 
came a man I wanted to hear. It was the superintendent of educa- 
tion for the State of Alabama. When that gentleman came to the 
platform to speak, he said, T am interested in the cause of educa- 
tion. I believe in education, but,' says he, T do not believe that 
the same kind of education provided for and given to white people 
of this Republic should be given to the black man. I believe there 
ought to be a difference in the education provided for these two 
peoples. The white man ought to be better educated; higher, 
broader and deeper educated than the Negro; that the Negroes 
ought to be trained. Their education ought to consist in the matter 
of training for the vital pursuits of the communities in which they 
live.' ■ -I' 

"That man, in my judgment, voiced the sentiments of ao^ teat 
many in this country who have backslidden from the advar: •• ". 
ground they took in the early days of our emancipation. (G 
applause.) 

"In the early part of the now passing academic years, the South- 
ern Education Association, embracing all of the white teachers 
below Mason and Dixon's line, met in Kentucky for the purpose of 
discussing the great subject of 'Education' in its various phases. 
They discussed it beautifully, too. I was interested in the Associated 
Press reports concerning that meeting. 



"Referring to visit at the quarter centennial anniversary of Tuske- 
gee, finally the president of that great institution came forward with 
a splendid address. I was charmed by his utterances. Never a 
man spake more to my condition than he. As he passed down the 
line discussing the great theme of 'Education' he showed himself 
a perfect master of the great theme and that great department of 
(^ur national activities. He showed himself to be master of the 
l)est that was written by Socrates, by Plato, by Aristotle, by F*esta- 
lozzi, by Herbert, by Spencer, and a host of modern edvicators. I 
ajiplauded him at almost every paragraph. When he got to the 
middle of his address, he said, 'I pause, particularly to get your 
attention. I wish to speak now of "Negro Education." That is a 
subject that has been greatly neglected by us in this country, and 
I believe that the time has come that we ought to insist upon this 
more than we have in all the past. 1 could wish that the States 
below Mason and Dixon's line in which misguided philanthropy has 
built colleges and universities for the education of Negroes, would 
take charge of these universities and modify their educational sys- 
tems, and a system of education should be provided for the Negro 
embracing the three r's, largely mixed with industrial training, so 
as to fit the Negro particularly to live with the people with whom 
he is to live and serve the comnnmities where he lives.' 

"This gentleman said that there should not be the same kind 
of education provided for the black man in this section as was 
provided for the white man. O, I stand in the National Capital 
to-night to say that all such doctrines are vagaries and heresies ! 
(Great applause.) I want to say that the best of education is none 
too good for every American citizen. I want to say as a student 
of the history of republics, and of constitutional government, and 
of nations still living, many dead and passed from the stage of 
activity, that any man who studies the progress of democratic society 
and democratic institutions must know that no democratic society 
is safe and permanent nor perpetuated by ignorance, nor can it be. 
It is founded by intelligence and must be saved by the intelligence 
of its people. (Great applause.) 

"I want to say further upon that very point, although many may 
dififer with me upon this particular point I am discussing, now. it 
matters not what any man may say. I believe in industrial educa- 
tiu 1. I believe in all kinds of education, but you can never get my 
CO isent to substitute a system of industrial education for real in- 
te' -tual culture. I say that not because I am prejudiced to any 
institution or to any movement. Industrial education is good for 
the white man and it is good for the black man ; good for every 
man in this country. The great thing the Negro and the white 
man needs, and all Americans need, is real education, which makes 
to soul enlargement, to spiritual development, enlargement of the 
mind, a stirring of the divinity within the American citizen, living 
up out of the small man into the big man. 

"Various systems are proposed for Negro education and these 
systems have the endorsement of many of our best white men 
who hold the pocketbooks and the purse strings that go to support 



education. Many of these systems are supported and believed in by 
many good colored men. I want to lay down a rule to-night, for 
I say to you, I do not like to talk at random. I like to give men a 
reason for the faith that is in me. I say to you in Washington, and 
I wish all America could be assembled before me to-night — I say 
to you that before you approve any system, and especially when 
opinions are so varied as they are to-day, before you approve any 
system for your children, be they black or white, you ought to 
test those systems by some rule that will reveal to you whether they 
are proper systems. No system is proper except that which is 
inherent in itself, and stands upon its own strength and its own 
power. That system of merits in themselves is not fitted for one 
unless it fits the destiny of the subject which is to be educated under 
that system. It, first of all, ought to demonstrate itself in itself 
to be proper and right, and ought to demonstrate itself in itself 
to fit the nature and condition and history and destiny of the 
Negro that is to be educated. Now that brings me to this point ; 
you ought to examine the Negro thoroughly. I wish every white 
man could hear that statement — examine the Negro and provide for 
him the education wdiich suits his essential nature. Examine him par- 
ticularly on two points : psychologically and physiologically. What- 
ever you find him to be, then suit your educational system to him 
as such. If you find him to be a mule or a horse, or an ox or a man, 
then fit your system to him according to the findings in the case. 

"I have examined the ox and I have examined the mule and I have 
examined the Negro and here is what I find. I find that when I 
examined the mule or the ox his supreme virtue resides in his feet 
which fit him for the road. I find in the horse that his own supreme 
virtue is found in his splendid shoulders that fit him for the cart. I 
therefore conclude when I am educating a horse, or a mule I am edu- 
cating him either for the road or the cart. I am educating him for 
the very thing he knows and for which God ordained him. When I 
examine an ox, I find his virtue resides in his neck and that virtue 
fits him for the yoke. I therefore conclude, train the ox for the yoke 
and the others for that which nature endowed him and for which God 
made him. I have no hesitancy in fixing his system of education 
accordingly. But when I examine the black man ; when I examine 
him psychologically and physiologically ; when I examine him histori- 
cally, I find at every point that I start thie examination . 
point where I come out with a conclusion, I find here a genus hunio, 
known as a man. (Great appaluse.) When I examine a man, T find 
that I examine that physical animal whose intellectual capacity has 
no more equal on the face of God's earth and whose ciuiowment 
makes him just a little lower than the angels. I find that the thing of 
power in man is mind. I find that the seat of power in man is the 
iDrain. I conclude, therefore, that he who would educate man's feet 
or man's shoulders or man's hands accomplishes something for civili- 
zation and for society, and he who trains the brain educates the man 
and builds empires. 



"I say that man's great power resides in liis brain. It is in the 
form of mind; it is in the form of spirit; and if you would develop 
the mind you must seek to develop that portion of man, and you must 
bring to bear upon him those forces and those branches of studies 
that will break loose the fetters that bind him in this direction and it 
is in this case and in this particular direction that the Negro needs 
especial attention ; and especially during these trying times when 
brains and spiritual power ; when learning and greatness are so much 
needed to defend our cause before the American people. I want to 
say, too, on this very particular point that I am talking about, that 
not only is it true that the thing in man to be particular about is his 
luind, his spirit, his soul, but about the system which is suited for the 
education and development and training of man particularly in a 
Republic. See to it that that system has for its chief feature the 
enlargement of that mind ; the cultivation of that mind so as to give 
sight to it, insight, comprehensiveness, depth and grasp, and power, 
so that man can see what he is looking at, and be able to interpret 
whatever man makes. 

"I am firmly of the opinion that there are hosts of good white men 
in this country, and thank God for it, but I am sorry to say that the 
good and true and just and fair are so much in the minority that they 
can not bring about what they would. If this race is finally re- 
deemed, it must produce its own leaders and its own promoters. You 
must see to it in your educational system that the important part of 
man is enlarged. Whatever else you do with him, and do not any- 
body get the idea that I am opposed to industrial education — my 
theory of education is this, that everything that he comes in contact 
with is educative ; all processes that he passes through are educa- 
tional, but to me that is not the subject of the school house. It is a 
subject of general experience. That is education which will redeem 
children equally ; that will enable him to take his place in the Repub- 
lic side by side with his fellow citizen and not be one whit behind any 
of the races. I say to you that 10,000,000 of Negroes in any country 
constitute too great a part of the body politic to be chained by any 
halfway ground of the purest and best education. (Great applause.) 
There are too many of us, and thank God that they have that poten- 
tiality and prolificness that multiplies at an astonishing rate. (Great 
applause.) They used to say that there was a danger of our dying out 
like the American Indian, but that is not so. On my way from Ohio 
last night, a gentleman said to me that from the looks of things now, 
the white man is more sterile and the Negro more prolific. And it is 
hardly a question what will take place within the next fifty years. 
(Applause.) Let that be as it may and let that be considered by any 
man as any man chooses to consider it, the one thing I am concerned 
about, as a father of children and as a Negro, is that you, in every 
hamlet, in every cabin, at every cross road, in every section of this 
great nation wherever black children are born in the world, begin to 
consult with your God at once how you can make of those children 
the biggest possible men in America. That is the thing I am con- 
cerned about today. (Applause.) You need not be afraid about our 
white brethren. Overtake him in these great things, for he is put- 



8 > 

ting spurs to his horse and he is wa}^ up the road ahead of us. Tell 
him to go on, but for God's sake don't burn the bridges, nor close 
the doors behind him, for we are coming. Tell him to believe it and 
if he does not believe it, come over in Ohio and take a seat with me 
in my office a day and I will convince him that up that same road, 
over the same bridge, through the same door, the American black 
man is pressing. (Great applause.) 

"I want to say also that this attempt to substitute what is known as 
industrialism for real education is not only damaging to the Negro, 
but is thought to be particularly helpful to the white man by many 
of its advocates ; but I want to say that the black man is not alone 
injured by the attempt to substitute industrial training for intellectual 
training. It is a fact demonstrated by philosophy, demonstrated by 
experience, everywhere coming up before our eyes, in a democratic 
country where all are supposed to be equal ; in a constitutional gov- 
ernment where all are the same before the law ; in a republic where 
people look to their leaders and law makers, it is dangerous for that 
country to have ten millions of that people to be kept one whit behind 
the rest of the people. And our great legislature saw that in time. 
If I lived in Springfield with my distinguished J. W. Keifer (Great 
applause) and there is no interest in the City of Springfield that 
affects his wife or daughter, or his house that would not in the final 
analysis affect him ; and for that very reason I would be as good a 
man and as big a man as he is. (Great applause.) 

"The motives which lie behind the attempt to substitute industrial 
education for the Negroes instead of intellectual, I have placed under 
three general heads : 

"i. My first reason is — I am not talking about what man says, 
for if men's actions were always in keeping with their words, we 
would not have any trouble with this Government — I am talking 
about the thing that is and not the thing it is said to be. I say 
to-night as a student of these affairs that one of the great motives that 
lies behind the attempt to substitute industrial for real education is 
'Old time Helotism.' The Negro was brought from Africa not .for 
the purpose of being made a Christian ; not for the purpose of being 
made an American citizen, a self-directing leader and self-directing 
land owner of himself, his wife and children, but for the express 
purpose of helotism ; hewers of wood and drawers of water ; servants 
of servants in the house of his brethren because of the strength ar-^ 
power of this motive. Every door to intellectual learning was close 
and learning was absolutely forbidden, and if a man dared to gv i 
him of that forbidden fruit, that day he died. Learning was madr 
to him a veritable forbidden fruit for the reason that enlarged mw'i 
and unfettered spirit and cowarlly servitude did not go together. The 
white men in this covintry in the days of slavery knew it well and 
hence they made education the veritable forbidden fruit, and the 
white man that dared to give the Negro this forbidden fruit had to 
forswear that business or go the way of the worst of criminals. Why 
was it so? There was a specific purpose for which the Negro was 
brought to this country — to be servants of servants in the house of 
his brethren. But out of that condition the Just God, the Mighty, the 



Eternal Father wlio nnmbers the hairs upon our heads ; who takes 
notice of the tiny grass ; who takes notice of the worm that turns in 
the (lust; who cares for the sparrow, finally called a man up out of 
the 'Wilderness' of Kentucky and sent him forth, like a gigantic child 
of nature, untutored except by God and His Spirit force, who led him 
to bum his oil at midnight ; that great gigantic rail splitter who stood 
in the Kentucky Legislature and said, if ever the opportunity comes 
to me to hit that 'damnable institution,' I will hit it. (Great ap- 
plause.) God brought that man out of Kentucky and sent him forth- 
with into the White House and placed him on that high eminence, 
and he never forgot his promise. When the opportunity came, he 
drew his greatest strength together and he struck that institution at 
Gettysburg ; he struck it at Bull Run ; he struck it at Antietam ; he 
struck it at Milliken's Bend ; he struck it in the Wilderness ; and he 
struck it in the Battle above the Clouds ; yes, he struck it at Appo- 
matox Court House and that 'damnable institution' fell! (Long ap- 
plause.) I tell you. he struck it and it fell and was buried in its 
rotten hell beyond all resurrection. 

"With the death of American slavery helotism ought to have died, 
but it did not. But as soon as the men gathered themselves from that 
awful conflict, they began to devise ways so that what they lost 'n 
one form they would gain in another. They proposed for the Negro 
a different kind of education from which they gave the white man 
and they took particular enjoyment in giving him an education that 
would fit him for the highest service, but for the same old business. 
(Applause.) 

"Now you may say I am a poor philosopher, but I have been i cach- 
ing that subject for ten years and I ought to know a little about it by 
this time. 

"2. There is another motive. Not all of my brethren are included 
in this same class. That class is made up of good white men and 
good negroes, plenty of them, who say that industrial education is 
the chief form of education for the Negro because it is practical. 
But this word practical misleads a great many Negroes and a great 
many white men. Now that is practical which aids a man in the 
surest and deepest way to accomplish the things of his life and iiis 
destiny. That is practicality, when in a community it makes J. H. 
Jones the biggest possible Jones that can be. (Great applause.) Not 
the thing that is best suited for Brother Keifer's use, but the thing 
tluii 5s best suited for my own use is practical. And I say to you, 
liiai word 'practical' has misled so many good people ; for if you fol- 
low it out it is an illusive word. It is the ghost in another dress. 
Nothing more. 

"3. But there is another class and this class is made up largely 
of Negroes, and many educators of the country form this class. 
It is the 'get much theory.' They preach from the river to the end 
of the world ; from Dan to Beersheba. If you would take their advice, 
you would capitalize cities instead of educating cities. They will see 
that you get much of life. Therefore it is the best thing. How 
illusive is this term ; how deceptive. It is not the man that gets a 
great lot out of the world ; it is the man who makes of himself the 



biggest instrumentality in the world ; the man who makes much out 
of himself, that man can get much out of the world. 1 have no hesi- 
tancy in telling you — no matter how good a blacksmith you are, nor 
how good a carpenter you are ; or how good you are at this thing or 
the other — I do not care what you say, if you say you are in earnest 
that you are going to take your blacksmith trade and push your cause 
against mine because I have nothing, I will take the house you 
build from you. I will take it from you by my scientific and classi- 
cal, my deeper and broader knowledge. I will take your horse and 
wagon away from you. I will take every house you build from now 
until you go to your grave, and will ride in your buggies beside. 
(Great applause.) 

"The thing a republic needs is not less big men and big women but 
men and women who have intellectual minds ; men and women whose 
minds are cultured and so enlarged that they can not stoop to small 
things and the armies of the rabble can not run them away. When 
we manufacture those kind of men and women out of our ten mil- 
lions we will have nothing to fear in America. I do not want any- 
body to suppose that I am opposed to industrial education. I be- 
lieve in work, in industries for black men and white men alike, how- 
ever. I do not believe it is fair for the white men and a few well 
thinking Negroes to industrially educate the Negro and get him away 
from the higher and let him drop to the peasant class, while the white 
man goes on to glory in other good things. I believe in industrial 
education. I believe in it as a supplement to mental culture. But as 
a supplement to mental culture, if I am to have one without the 
other, for God's sake unchain my mind and with my mind I will un- 
chain my hands myself. (Great applause.) 

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, that brings me to the higher 
form of my discussion and I am sorry the evening has grown so old 
that I must cut short my argument. I am glad that Senator Foraker 
is not here — although I would be very glad to hear him — as I am 
using my time and his also. As the Negro is a man psychologically 
and physiologically constructed, he chiefly needs the kind of educa- 
tion which I have described. It is best for the republic ! it is best for 
the white man that Negroes be given higher education and if the 
white man really knows his business, he will see to it that every 
Negro who can afford higher education ior his children shall have 
it. If the Negro can not afford to give his chilldren higher educa- 
tion, then white philanthropy together with what money the state 
would give ought to give them this higher education. If the white 
man knew what was the best good of the republic he would insist 
upon higher education being placed within the reach of all the 
people. 

"For development, I lay down seven species : I will proceed with 
the lower to the higher and if I must leave off any, I will leave oft" 
the heavier so that in the near future I will get an invitation to come 
back and finish my speech. (Applause.) 

"i. The first reason I give and hold for higher education for the 
Negro as a patriotic duty and national necessity, is this : I claim 
that this verv civilization itself demands it. This civilization is a 



]M-ocluct of higher education. It is a product of intensive intellect. 
and not the product of the coarse white production, but of the braini- 
est white men of this cour.try. It is a civilization high in its charac- 
ter, vast in its limitations. Xo man, white or black, can comprehend 
it unless he is an intelligent man. This is my first reason. 

"2. This civilization should never be lowered in order to come 
down on an average level with Negro intelligence. All Negroes 
should be lifted up. I would not like to see this civilization lowered 
one whit. My only fear is that it will go down, and if the white men 
do not use a little more brains and less brute force, this civilization 
has marked its height already. 

"3. This civilization itself demands preservative conditions, which 
make for the ramification with nations. The definite conditions for 
national affairs are laid and founded and grounded upon the laws of 
God and the laws of God everywhere ramify the affairs of nations 
in order that these laws might operate among men for the govern- 
ment of society and preservation of the masses of the people. 

'■4. I have still another reason, which I think is greater. The 
national conditions for national welfare are grounded upon the 
ixjwers, the resources and activities of nature. A nation can not 
thrive and can not take care of its daily increasing population unless 
the intelligence of the people are lifted up so they can more fully 
understand nature's laws and operations and get in harmony with 
those laws so as to bring from nature the yield which God intended 
it should give forth for the maintenance of this great republic. 

"5. But that is not all. I claim that the wealth of a nation, of a 
republic, is also grounded upon intelligence and virtue of its citizens. 

"6. I need not go farther, yet more I claim, that the humanity of 
the Negro ought to demand humanity of the white man. They served 
the white man 250 years in servitude and made it possible for the 
white man to enjoy his labor. The humanity in the Negro which 
caused him to do this ought to appeal to the white man to let him 
have some of that money that he made for him and let him rise up 
and care for his mother, his own wife and children. 

"And now to you, black men : You are looking to IVesident 
Roosevelt for redemption as the father of the Nation. You are look- 
ing to him for help and amelioration of your condition in the affairs 
of the nation. You are looking to our great War Secretary and to 
a great many of the Cabinet to carry out the mission of Christ to 
ameliorate the conditions of the Negro; b;t mark you, tonight, and 
tell this to your wife when you go home ; tell it to your children, wake 
them up out of bed and whisper in their ears ; tell your sons and 
daugliters to tell to their children and their children that a man came 
from Ohio to Washington for the sane purpose to say to vou Ne- 
groes of Washington, to the Cnited States that the history of civii- 
zation throughout all nations, all ages tells one unbroken story which 
I give to you tonight that wherever a weak people come into the 
midst of a strong people and take r,]) its habitation and remain weak 
and ignorant that strong people will always hitch that weak people 
by the side of the mule and horse and work him for his enjoyment. 
I say your redemption is in self-evolution. You want to preach it 



12 

to every Negro child in the land to rise up and be somebody ; to rise 
up and be a man ; and if in the attempt you die. die and go on to 
heaven for you are better off. (Great applause.) 

"Yes, I plead for higher education for the Negro. I plead as a 
patriotic duty to the state and as a necessity to the nation, as a good 
to the republic, as a good to the black man and white man. I would 
not stint his education. I would teach him mathematics from the 
simplest principles of arithmetic to objective geometry and celestial 
mechanics. And if by his mathematical principles he was able to 
take possession of Mars and Jupiter, he should have the opportunity 
so far as I was concerned. It would enable him to see with radiation, 
with breadth and sweep to his vision. He would know his friends 
even before they had spoken. Such an education would give a 
Negro thorough introduction to the visible universe and when he had 
reached that point, he would ask nobody but God to be his friend. 
That is the kind of education I would give the black man. You are 
neglecting the study of the great languages. I know that Negroes, 
as well as white men, are inclined to ridicule the idea of Greek and 
Latin. I want to tell you that my experience with black men and 
white men is, if you want to enlighten a man's mind, you must teach 
to him the 350 forms of Greek verbs ; the declensions of Latin ; the 
intricate tasks of the Caesars and all of those great actors of great 
acumen. When you have gone over that track, you will have put 
in that man a liberal mind and a liberal spirit. I plead that the black 
man ought to be given an education that will give him an intimate 
knowledge of the great languages ; should include a great knowl- 
edge of history which would enable him to know the nations that 
rose and fell and the causes that led to their failure ; the great races 
and their relation to each other, so that we may know what to pre- 
serve and what to kick aside. But you can not know these things 
unless you are a student of broad scholarship. This education should 
include an economic and broad knowledge of all things. 

"They tell me that the negro is imitative. If that is so, I want 
every negro tonight to prove it and imitate the white man in one 
great essential. Imitate the white man in the matter of education. 
Did you hear what I said, imitate the white man in one great essential 
and that essential is embraced in education. When a white child is 
born into this world from a respectable parentage, when that beautiful 
mother looks over the cradle at the child, which she produced, bone 
of her bone, flesh of her flesh, she looks in her husband's face and 
says to him, 'my dear, what sacrifice can we make to God in order 
to make of this little bundle of protoplasm the biggest organic body 
that ever sat on a throne?' (Great applause.) That is her question. 
That is what I want you to do. If you have gone out to work in the 
morning and on returning home you find a new born black baby has 
come, put aside your dinner, lean over it, imitate the example of 
these great people. This mother day and night watches over this 
tender child, singing lullabies to it and kissing it on the cheek. She 
does not tell it ghost stories like many of our mothers do, but sings 
perfection. As soon as that little fellow gets so he can call mamma 



'3 

sweetly to it and kisses its brow until its very tissues emulate into 
and papa, she takes him up in her arms and places him in a kinder- 
garten under the very best pedagogue the country has produced. His 
development begins. After that he is placed in a grammar school 
for eight long years, being under the strictest vigilance and most 
careful culture and best training that the world has ever known. He 
is trained in all the rudiments of the King's English, elements of 
arithmetic and other splendid things of history, and then when he 
reaches the age of ten or twelve, he is taken to the high school where 
he remains four long years under the best teachers and studies the 
rudiments of higher learning. At the end of the four years, that 
same boy or girl is taken to' one or more of the noted colleges of 
America where this learning is made deep and broad, where the very 
best culture is put into him and where the most experienced teachers 
the world has ever seen direct his education. He comes out at the 
age of eighteen or twenty and enters a imiversity and takes up higher 
courses still, which places him into some specialty. He traces that 
specialty out and out and out until he strikes the very limit of the 
visible universe, and he stands there with nobody around but the 
awakened divinity that has come through the way of this long study. 
He looks out into the darkness, and as he peers out into that dark- 
ness, dizzily, he finds that he can not fathom it. He cries out, who 
art thou that movest in the darkness, beware for this white man is 
after thee! ("Great applause.) 

"I want to ask that you imitate that white man in the education of 
your sons and your daughters. 

"And now, fellow citizens, and Mr. Chairman, we have come to- 
night for the purpose of celebrating the thirty-eighth anniversary of 
the adoption of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution. It guar- 
antees to every American citizen the right of casting his ballot in 
every station, town and cross road. You could have made no occa- 
sion more worthy than this one. I congratulate you upon your patri- 
otism. It matters not that we have been robbed largely of that privi- 
lege, still we are right in that we appreciate the great cause which 
these immortal amendments celebrate, and the men that were con- 
nected with them, and the men that stand for them today. 

"We are told by some wise Negroes and lots of white men that 
Negroes ought to stay out of politics. We are told by white men who 
live below Mason and Dixon's line that if we do not stay out of 
nolitics. they will take it from us. Hence they have turned up the 
.' ,^ ' ather clause' and all other clauses which will keep the Negroes 
oting. There are men in Congress who have sworn under 
" , ^ ^V-ion to stand by the Constitution and who stand guilty at the 
bar ■■i God as falsifying its organic law. 

' [ say to you that all who preach the doctrine that the Negro 
ought to eschew politics and let it alone, do not know how to prop- 
erly diagnose you. You ought not to pay any attention to them. 
If I were you, I would ask the general Government to make a general 
appropriation to gather up all those Negroes and put them in a free 
school. To me the ballot has three great purposes, in the hands of 
the common man : 



14 

"i. One great office of the American ballot is to teach the com- 
mon citizen the principles of politics by the use of the ballot, of the 
interests of the affairs of the State, county, and nation. It will help 
you to know the departments of the Government, and to know when 
any offense is committed by any of its officers and how to correct 
that one when he needs correcting. It is one of the greatest educa- 
tors that can be given a people. We can not afford to be without the 
ballot. There is no school more potential than is the school of the 
American ballot. 

"2. Another reason is that it is the intention of the Republic, the 
intention of every constitutional government, of any democracy 
from the days of the Greeks, the Romans and of all the old nations 
under constitutional governments from whom we have learned the 
idea that the ballot in the hands of the common man was a protection 
against the law maker and the executive, because if they did not do 
their duty and legislate fairly for all the people, with the might of 
the ballot they could be silenced. It was for this reason that the 
ballot was given the poor and the weak in any country and he can 
not afford to give up his ballot, his constitutional correction for evils 
in the country. 

"3. Another great reason is that it is the only weapon the demo- 
cratic tyrant is afraid of. That democrat is never afraid of the weak 
man until he finds that weak man wields a ballot. The people of the 
South saw this or the legislatures of the South would never have 
inserted in the statute books a 'GrandfathpT- Clause.' With the ballot 
in the hand of the Negro, there is no legislature in America that 
would dare put on the statute books a 'Jim Crow' car law, or a 
'Grandfather Clause.' There is not a Southern State, municipality, 
a school district, that would dare legislate to give the whites three- 
fourths of the money raised for education, while the Negro gets one- 
fourth. Remember the day will come, and that day is not far off, 
as I believe it is not, when over the land wherever the stars and 
stripes float, the black rhan will be permitted to cast his ballot with- 
out favor. I was sitting in my office the other night and my soul 
grew weary and my heart got sick ; I really got tired when I remem- 
bered that the Secretary of the Treasury, the President of the United 
States and the Secretary of War, when they saw fit went to Cuba 
and took over the Cuban Government in their hands until they 
could arrange for a fair and honest election and here under the ve 
shadow of the Government they could do nothing. I say my heart 
got sick when I thought of the same three great officers setting up 
the American Government in Cuba, while at home nothing has been 
done to preserve the organic law of the land. It is an awful pity. 
It is an aAvful sight to behold. Where is the Navy? Where is the 
Army? Where is the Treasury? Where is Cuba? Where is the 
Grand Army of the Republic when the Constitution is being walked 
on as if it were a dirty rag? (Great applause.) 



15 
And now, ladies and gentlemen, 

" 'Right forever on the scaffold, 

Wrong forever on the throne. 
Yet that scaffold sways the future 

And behind the dim unknown 
Standeth God within the shadow 

Keeping watch upon His own.' 

"God has not forgotten us. I beg you not to be disconsolate. Do 
not lose faith in this Great Republic, this Ship of State will right 
itself some day. Yes, thank God, it will ! What a spectacle have we 
not witnessed ! In less than seventy-two months these very black 
men representing her by fighting under Old Glory in Cuba, in the 
Philippines, in China and around the world in her conflicts, and then 
coming home to be quartered at Brownsville right under the flag, 
right under the shadow of the Capitol, they are to be belittled, they 
are to be misrepresented in so much that it is the conclusion at least 
of those in high quarters that fifteen or eighteen were guilty of shoot- 
ing up Brownsville and because that conclusion has been reached by 
those in high quarters, 300 of the bravest men that ever carried a 
gun in any battle were thrown out in disgrace : some of which having 
served their country for twenty-six years. Whoever heard of similar 
jurisprudence, where the innocent must first prove himself innocent 
before he can be regarded as not guilty. 

"Thank God, my fellow citizens, the brave men are not all dead 
yet; for in that trying hour, if that great man had not risen and 
spoken out from that high eminence, I believe the rocks out of which 
the Capitol is built would have spoken. None too late, but born out 
of due time, there arose from the great State of Ohio a soldier, a 
statesman, a patriot, who has never faltered for two generations in 
standing for the Constitution, for Justice and Righteousness at the 
bar of the xA^merican Republic, who stood up in the Senate, wrapped 
his judicial robes about him and stooped down and picked up the 
cause of the black soldier, when that cause had been trampled in the 
dust beneath his enemies' feet, that giant picked it up and held it up 
before their gaze and restored it to its former position, step by step, 
until, thank God, that cause no longer trails in the dust, but Heaven 
.i£cJ"recog"-zed it. (Great applause.) That soldier, that jurist, that 
statesman, that patriot, that lawyer was no less a figure than Joseph 
Benson Foraker. (Long and loud applause.) 

"T .im f. r Foraker! I am for Foraker! because I am for the Con- 
s . (Great applause.) I am for the Constitution because I 

am lor tne flag and the nation. And if I forget him. 'O, Jerusalem, 
let my lips forget her cunning and my tongue cleave fast to the roof 
of my mouth.' I can not forget him! I will not forget him! T will 
stand by him until the last stars go down. (Great applause.) T do 
not care who is offended. H they choose to be offended at me because 
I am thus, they are offended with a man. (Applause.) I owe alle- 
giance to the State, but deeper and truer to the sympathy which God 



e 



i6 

has placed within him. My country claims my fealty, but before it 
made me a citizen, Great Nature made me a man. (Great applause.) 

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, I beg- your pardon for this long 
speech. I have kept you late, thinking that my distinguished Senator 
from Ohio would be here. I have tried to be particular about my 
own side and particular about his good name. So I thank you for 
your kindness, although, I am sure, I have not finished my speech ; 
I could speak six hours longer. 

"I beg you to accept my deepest thanks for the presence of the 
students of my old Alma Mater. God bless her ; God bless them ; 
God bless the American people. I thank you." (Long applause.) 



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